One of a dictionary user's basic needs is to find an appropriate translation for a word being looked up (hereinafter, the “lookup word”). The lookup word may be a new word that the user has encountered, for example while reading. Alternatively, the look word may be a word in a source language (e.g. English) that the user wishes to have translated into a corresponding word in a target language (e.g. Russian). Bilingual dictionaries usually comprise dictionary entries, each providing many translations (lexical meanings), examples, synonyms and other information, corresponding to a lookup word,
One of the most challenging tasks for a dictionary producer is to help the dictionary reader/user find a good translation and all the relevant information about a lookup word. For example, the word “file” has several homonyms and several lexical meanings, and depending on context it may be translated into different parts of speech, and each part of speech may have several radically different meanings and different syntactical models of usage. For defining such syntactical models of lexical meanings in the dictionaries an appropriate markup form may be used which is useful when a user wants to translate something into a foreign language. In this case the dictionary can show, for example, in what discourse or subject field a lookup word is usually used, what preposition should be used before a noun, or what preposition should be used after a verb, in what collocations the lookup word is usually used, is a direct object required by the verb and where in the sentence this direct object must be placed, etc. Usage examples that illustrate the lexical meanings can greatly help the user to select the most appropriate translation, when he is reading the text in a foreign language or when he is trying to translate a collocation into a foreign language.